


A Well Adjusted Root

by Karkashan



Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-17
Updated: 2015-09-25
Packaged: 2018-04-15 05:05:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4593894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Karkashan/pseuds/Karkashan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mebuki was many things. A non-active kunoichi. A co-owner of a tea shop. A mother and a wife. But though she wore the name Haruno like a beloved cloak, she could never deny that she was still Shimura at her core. </p><p>In which: Mebuki Haruno was born Mebuki Shimura, daughter of Danzo. Yet, so many things stay the same.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Not Every Kunoichi Needs Subtlety. Neither Does She Need Brute Strength.

When she first notices that her daughter has begun dieting, a part of Mebuki thinks _Good._ Because if trained properly, a girl who didn't look like she had trained could be an effective tool. It's at that last word (tool) that she snaps the kitchen knife she'd been holding.

 

No. That wasn't her anymore. That wasn't her _life_ anymore. And under no circumstances would she force that life onto her daughter. Sakura was of the Haruno clan, not her mother's birth one. The Harunos were the ninja who became bakers, craftsman, and clerks. They were the farmers who laid down their kunai and picked up the hoe after their service was done. They weren't the Shimura, whose mantra was that _A Ninja is a Sword. Sheathed, a warning. Unsheathed, the victor._

 

But at the same time, she wouldn't force her daughter to take a different path because of Mebuki's past. So, in her own way, she let her daughter know her options, if only in vague terms. Let her know that she could be a ninja, be useful to her village, in more than one way; that the power of the warrior the Jounin track shinobi favored wasn't the only way.

 

There was a use in an unassuming, weak-looking girl, and muscles had a way of developing under the right chakra treatments to appear almost non-existant. But in the end, it would be Sakura's choice.

 


	2. Sakura Learns Some Things. She Kind of Wishes She Hadn't.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sakura finally uses the word normal-ish, just like her father had once dreamed. This is how she got to that point.

 

 

Her daughter started pestering Mebuki about her old Genin team after the Uchiha left to train with her old Genin-sensei, Orochimaru. Mebuki waited to show her her old Genin team photo until after Sakura had made Chuunin. She made sure to wait until Sakura was tired coming after a shift at the hospital so she wouldn't have her guard up as much.

 

"Mom," Sakura nearly choked as she glanced at the photo seemingly forgotten on the kitchen table, "what is this?!"

 

"Oh, that old thing?" Mebuki asked with false innocence, "That's just my old team photo, dear."

 

"B-but," Sakura spluttered, "Orochimaru was your Jounin-sensei?! I thought he hadn't taken in a team?"

 

"Of course he did, sweetie," Kizashi said as he entered the kitchen. "All three of the Legendary Trio had a genin team." He glanced at his wife with a cheeky grin, "What did we used to call your team, honey?"

 

"Team Fabulous Hair, of course," Mebuki responded automatically. "If there was one thing Sensei was good at teaching, it was about hair care."

 

"While my sensei really only ever taught us how to lose at the gambling houses," Kizashi said through his smile.

 

Sakura choked again. "Wait, Shishou was your sensei, dad?" She looked at him incredulously.

 

"Yup," he said, "and sensei kind of hated us ever since we first got landed with her."

 

"You mean she got landed you three layabouts," Mebuki said with a grin, jabbing her elbow in her husband's ribs good-naturedly.

 

"Hey now," Kizashi said with false affront, "I'll have you know our glorious Fifth Hokage, may she reign through 10,000 bottles of sake, was lucky to wind up with an Inuzaka clan heiress, a Nara kunoichi with an explosion fetish, and a future Tea House owner. Okay, maybe not the other two, but getting a strapping Haruno like myself to teach had to more than make up for their shortcomings."

 

Mebuki snorted. "And yet, Tsume and Yoshino both got promoted while you stayed a Genin."

 

"It's all a part of my diabolical plan to take over the world, you see," Kizashi replied without missing a beat.

 

Sakura looked dazed at all this new information. "Who were your teammates then, Mom?" Ah. It seemed she knew who Kizashi's former teammates were, then.

 

"Mikoto and Kushina. Just a couple of shinobi from these small, no-name clans called the Uchiha and the Uzumaki, respectively."

 

"What." Wow. That was kind of impressive how flat Sakura managed to make that word.

 

"Unsurprisingly," Kizashi said as he sat down at the kitchen table, the daily newspaper folding open his hands, "I lost a bet due to that. Mebuki, Kushina, and Mikoto swore to each other that if they all had kids they would be on the same Genin team, and then they would give them to Kakashi Hatake in revenge for him being the most rambunctious two year old on the planet. I bet your mother that would never happen." He gave his daughter a flat look over the top of his paper, "Then you just had to prove me wrong and got yourself saddled with Team Let's-Go-On-Dangerous-Missions."

 

"It - it wasn't as bad as all that, right?" asked Sakura with a slight trace of hesitation in her voice.

 

"Sakura," said Mebuki with her most solemn, serious, and Shimura facial expression she had at her disposal, "when we were Genin, the second Shinobi war was still going on, and we _still_ had less high ranked missions than you did in the first year as a shinobi."

 

"Oh," said Sakura. She paused for a moment as if to gather her thoughts, then hugged both of her parents. "I'm going to sleep now, but thank you both for being normal-ish."

 

"Crap," said Kizashi after their daughter had gone up the stairs, "I just won a bet."

 

"Guess we're gonna have bad weather next week then," Mebuki replied.

 


	3. Tea House Talk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Father and Daughter talk a bit about the village and other events after the makeup of the village is changed forever.

The wind lightly brushed against the decorations of the Haruno Tea House as the door opened. Hearing the distinctive cadence, that of a man walking with a cane, Mebuki exchanged a look with her husband. Nodding at his wife solemnly, Kizashi started preparing the drinks while Mebuki went to a now-familiar private room in order to talk with her father.  
  
"I am sheathed," Mebuki said in a calm voice as father and daughter seated themselves across from one another, the sake and tea arrayed in front of them. "I am willing to become unsheathed if necessary."  
  
Danzo inhaled deeply as he gazed outside the open window to where a small bamboo garden lay. The birds were calm; spring had yet to go into full swing as of yet. "No, Itachi isn't something that needs to be dealt with for what he did to the Uchiha clan."  
  
Mebuki let out a shaky breath. "So," she said with a reserved kind of sadness, "she really was planning a coup, then." At her father's sudden glance, Mebuki clarified her statement. "Mikoto, I mean. That the coup was supported by so much of the clan that wiping them all out was the only solution readily available speaks volumes as to who was behind it."  
  
"And yet every shred of evidence gathered pointed towards her husband being behind it," Danzo mused almost as if to himself. "Mikoto the Annihilator truly was the most formidable Uchiha Kunoichi I've ever known."  
  
Mebuki looked at the sake in her hand contemplatively. "May her soul find the rest it couldn't find in life," she intoned before she and her father drank simultaneously.  
  
"There's something you should know," Danzo said to his daughter. "Itachi had help from an unknown Uchiha when he massacred his clan."  
  
"So, I guess you really were outplayed, then," Mebuki said as she poured tea into her father's cup.  
  
Danzo sighed. "Yes, it seems your suspicions that an outsider Uchiha was behind the Kyuubi incident have more merit than I had given them credit for."  
  
Mebuki tapped her finger on the table. "Akatsuki incident," she states, pointing to an imaginary first bullet point on a list and moving downwards as she brought up something else. "Mist's return to open hostilities near the end of the 3rd war. The Kyuubi attack. The Kaguya clan's sudden suicidal tendencies and the subsequent bloodline purges of the Mist. The destruction of 5 separate major economic power bases in the land of Wind. The plague of the land of Stone that had no true discernible cause. The attempted kidnapping of Hinata of the Hyuuga by a dissident element of Hidden Cloud, despite the Raikage's claims to the contrary. And now the Uchiha Massacre. I'm beginning to think someone's trying to thin out any threats, and those he can't kill off indirectly he pits against each other by the resurgence of war."  
  
"What makes you think they're all connected?" asked Danzo in a way that implied he thought the same, but wanted to hear a different opinion.  
  
"Mist, Kaguya, and the Cloud incident are far too similar to the ones implemented by the few Uchiha ROOT shinobi we had during the second world war to be mere coincidence. They practically reek of mind manipulation in the style of Sharingan use."  
  
"I had some agents do a full inspection of the body before we had to turn it back over to the Hidden Cloud; it definitely showed signs of Sharingan tampering."  
  
Mebuki nodded in acknowledgement. "Good to have that confirmed." She paused a moment, glancing out the window before continuing. "The plague was something that seemed based off of Sensei's old experiments, and from what I understand he's been spotted in some of the same circles the Akatsuki have been. There's also been some evidence of Kaguya jutsu use in the Wind country even after the clan was annihilated, so the aggressive destruction of the Wind country's economy seem like they've been done by the same ones who have been messing with the Hidden Mist. Throw in the other evidence at these same places that points to cursed seal usage, and you have a connection between Akatsuki, Orochimaru, and whomever this mysterious foreign Uchiha is."  
  
"My subordinates were quick to suspect that this Uchiha was Madara, you disagree?"  
  
Mebuki nodded. "Yes. Madara was a cunning shinobi and a warrior of the highest caliber, but he wasn't the chess-master that this new one is. This new one seems to have plots buried within his own plots hidden in other peoples' plans without their knowledge." Mebuki hummed in frustration, "As to his motivation or end goal, I have no idea, save war."  
  
"Yes, that was my thought as well," Danzo said. "He either plans for a 4th shinobi war between all 5 nations, or between all 5 nations and an outside force. Either one seems suitable to his purpose."  
  
Mebuki hummed in response, enjoying the lull in conversation as she drank her tea and listened to the ambient noises around her. Her father seemed content with this set of circumstances as well.  
  
"What of my granddaughter? I hear she is doing well in the Academy, at least academically," Danzo said without preamble.  
  
Mebuki chuckled softly at the sudden conversation shift. How very like her father; to talk about conspiracies one minute, and his only granddaughter's grades the next. "You heard?" Mebuki lightly teased her father. "Are you sure you didn't just read the copies of the teacher's reports you had your agents make for you?"  
  
Danzo grumbled lightly at his daughter's cheekiness. "I was simply curious," he deflected.  
  
"She's at the top of her class, as if you didn't already know," Mebuki responded. "Sakura's very good at retaining details and determining cause and effect. Kizashi thinks she could end up in Strategy, while I'm thinking Infiltration might be more of her thing."  
  
"Or," Danzo said, almost softly, "she could take after her grandmother."  
  
Mebuki smiled slightly as she placed her hand in her father's, their hands tightening together in a gesture of remembering together. "I think Sakura would be as good a medic as mom was too, dad."  
  
  


End file.
